Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

White House budget officials threatened a veto for a bill nearing the House floor that would expand timber harvests on federal lands scattered throughout western Oregon.

Cheered by environmental groups, Wednesday's veto threat presents
another hurdle for rural counties seeking an economic boost from Oregon
& California Railroad grant lands that were once a major source of
lumber.

The White House action raised the visibility of the latest round in
the long-running timber wars in Oregon. Several heavily forested
counties south of the Willamette Valley have slashed their law
enforcement and other services as their federal timber receipts have
disappeared and their local economies have lagged.

At the same time, environmental groups say the legislation threatens a
return to industrial clearcuts on federal lands that will damage the
hillsides, muddy streams and threaten wildlife.

In a statement, the Office of Management and Budget said that it
would recommend that President Barack Obama veto the bill if it reached
his desk in its current form. The statement criticized not only the
O&C provisions in the bill but also other parts of the legislation
that the agency said would conflict with environmental laws and harm
federal forests and range lands.

The White House budget office said the Oregon provisions "would
undermine appropriate management and stewardship of these lands" while
compromising habitat for endangered and threatened species. The
statement said the bill "also contains seriously objectionable
limitations on the President's existing authority" to create national
monuments in areas with O&C lands.

The bill, H.R. 1526,
received final approval Wednesday from the House Rules Committee to go
the full House, where debate could begin as early as Thursday.

Reps. Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader, both D-Ore., and Rep. Greg
Walden, R-Ore., drafted the Oregon provisions. It calls for placing
about 1.6 million acres of the 2.8 million acres covered by the bill in a
state-managed trust focused on timber production.

The measure also would temporarily extend a program providing federal
timber payments to counties to help pay for local services.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, is drafting his own legislation and has indicated
that he intends to try to negotiate a deal with the House. Wyden's aides
declined comment Wednesday on the veto threat.